In a recent conversation, Andy, a friend and experienced leadership coach, mentioned that we live in a “world of assessment.”
Reflecting on this statement, I agreed with his assessment and wondered about the impact of being in such a world.
Let’s consider a few situations.
Watching professional golfers play, I was listening to a journalist. He was explaining what mental efforts the player was undertaking in reaction to the situation. A bit later, he explained why the player had chosen to use a specific club.
When I’m watching such an event, I’m hoping that the journalist provides me with useful information to gain insight into the events, the atmosphere, and the impact of a player’s action on the situation. I’m assuming that the journalist is more of an expert than I am and will thus listen to what he describes, seeing him as an authority on the subject. It makes me more willing to trust what he is saying.
But a journalist talking about a player’s mental state can’t know. He’s considering what he knows about golf, the player, and the situation as solid enough information to feel capable of reading the player’s mind.
Interviewing a local journalist during the conclave, another journalist asked him what was happening in the Sistine Chapel. It was the start of the conclave without any votes cast yet. The journalist was trying to describe the procedure and yet found himself confronted with the question of who would be the next pope, how long it would take for him to be elected, etc. Having a description of the election process didn’t seem to be enough for the journalist interviewing his colleague. He seemed to be looking for an answer that would provide him not only with the name of the next pope, but also how the other cardinals were choosing him.
Another striking feature of our times is the way people seek to predict the outcome of elections or the evolution of the stock market.
All of these are assessments, the ideas and opinions people developed of what it is that could be the future, the cause of events as they occur, and the way to act in reaction to an existing situation.
Is it to trust themselves more, to feel less alone, or to feel safer in their interpretation of the situation that people ask for these assessments and seem to consider them as reliable enough to integrate them into their worldview?
Does it lead to them considering an assessment as something that is true? To take it seriously enough to let go of any verification? There is a probability that this will happen. With the amount of information we are bombarded with, we might have established a necessity to feel in the knowing and reduce the work to discriminate the available information.
